


Desolated

by phantombrew



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dystopia, Gen, Loneliness, Post-Apocalypse, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantombrew/pseuds/phantombrew
Summary: Humanity is conquered. Earth is left quiet. Aliens use its materials to fuel their empire. One girl finds herself alone, trapped in endless vacated towns and cities. With little more than her own will, she takes it upon herself to free humanity, or die trying.





	1. Chapter 1

My head hurts. Everything hurts actually. I can barely feel my legs as I slowly try to pull myself off the floor. My eyes are sealed shut with grime and dust, but I quickly clear them off and finally get to look around. Adam’s office is in pieces, literally. The walls have started to come apart, and pieces of the ceiling have fallen in everywhere, leaving chunks of concrete and plaster scattered around the room. I stand up, shaking the plaster dust off of me as I do so. Surprisingly, I’m still in one piece despite being out for god knows how long. My left armpiece aches, but it’s still attached so I can’t complain really. There’s no sign of Adam, only his personal belongings.

I walk over to his desk, smashed in two by a chunk of ceiling that’s landed right in the middle. All the drawers are spilled onto the ground, empty. The windows behind his desk are all cracked making it hard to see out, not that there is much to see. A massive dust cloud makes it hard to even see the building across the street, leaving it as nothing more than a dark silhouette. Sirens blare somewhere in the distance, distorting as they make their way up to me through the fog. I should probably get out of here.

My knife is sitting on the floor, exactly where I dropped it. I pick it up, holding the blade up to the light. Adam’s blood is still on it, dry now though. It’s easily wiped off on my pants, where I slide it into its sheath for safe keeping. The door is stuck open thanks to the frame being partially smashed in. I sneak through, popping out in a hallway. To one end is the elevator, which is probably broken or stuck somewhere, and the other end is another window. I walk over towards the elevator, taking a quick left to the staircase down.

The staircase is drab. It’s hard to tell each floor apart from one another, with the intermittent doorways becoming monotonous side dressing to the repetitive grey stairs. I pass down each flight quickly, hitting the point where I’m carrying the momentum and skipping steps. A door is open on one floor, pouring in light from outside and totally breaking my train of thought as I round the corner. I stop myself in front of it, breaking out in a light sweat as I take stock of what’s inside. The hallway ahead of me is dead silent, with no sign of any wear or tear from the signal firing at all. No sign of anybody, either. I pass by dozens of empty offices, each adorned with trinkets and photos from whomever works in them. Finally, I come to a corner, leading me to none other than the elevator. It’s open, seemingly called here, with a spilled planter blocking the door mechanism. Again, there’s no sign of anyone here to have called it, it feels almost too convenient to be safe.

The door slides open after what felt like an eternity, revealing the foyer in full. Everything’s been destroyed, with the windows being smashed in and the furniture being tossed about recklessly. The support pillars are all cracked, which is as good a reason as any to get out. The street is completely hidden by a cloud of dust, making it hard for me to judge if anyone’s outside at all. I go for the front door but stop myself. Chances are the worst possible idea would be to go out into a busy street, especially in the state I’m in. I hop over the front counter and open the door into the back room, passing through into a small storage area. Everything seems to be in order, with no sign of anyone even having been back here. I pass through more hallways until I finally make it to the back door, leading me out into a large docking area. There’s a truck parked right to my left as I step out, abandoned in the dock with the passenger door ajar. The dust isn’t as prevalent in the back, stopping right at the edge of the street and creating a wall of fog totally obscuring the outside. It was dark out, dark as night, but none of the street lights were on. The power was on inside as well, so unless the streetlights were cut there should be some light. I look up to the sky.

A massive object is floating above the city. Clouds are passing underneath its massive underside. I can vaguely make out parts jutting out from the base, sprouting out like tumors from the mass. I have to close my mouth manually before returning my gaze to my immediate surroundings. _What the hell is that?_

I can’t think straight, my head feels like it’s spinning. I hold myself in place for a second and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I look up again, being met with the same view as before. It’s hard to even believe.

I have to get out of here.

The truck’s battery isn’t dead, and the key is still in the ignition. It rumbles to life when I turn the key, lighting up the console and starting the radio back up. Nothing’s making it through, so I shut it off for the time being. The loading dock is a snug fit, but I have just enough clearing to fully pull the truck out and turn it towards the road. I drive out into the cloud of dust, carefully making my way into a lane and starting forwards.

Nobody’s on the road at all. I keep a low speed as I try to navigate my way through the empty streets. My mental map of the area is next to useless thanks to the dust obscuring my sight. I remember there being a ramp down onto the highway somewhere nearby, but the dust makes it impossible to tell where I am in relation to anything else. Eventually, I find a bridge leading over into the north side. Again, there’s no sign of anyone nearby at all, even as I cross over. The dust has settled over the bridge, slowly fading and leaving me alone in the shadow of the object above.

There has to be a faster way out of here. The highway has a connector ramp somewhere close by, but I can barely see anything because of the near total absence of light. Signs start to crop up showing that it’s close by, so I keep on the main road. It’s hard to make out at first due to the truck’s headlights being dim, but I spot the entrance and make my way up onto the highway, trying to keep everything steady as the ramp curves upwards. There’s no traffic to be seen, but I can see the ending of the shadow, with the sun creating a clear line of light up ahead. I shoot off, leaving the city in the dust.


	2. Chapter 2

Adam stands near the top of the deck, looking out over several dozen operators keeping their ship afloat. Below them is a view of the ground below, bereft of life beneath the ship’s massive shadow. Everyone has evacuated the area around their ship, they don’t know what it was. They fear it.  
The door behind Adam slides open, allowing the ship’s captain into the room. They have two feet on the human, yet they hunch over to be at eye level.  
“I’ll be talking to the press tomorrow, don’t you worry.”  
The captain’s body shudders with a wave of repressed laughter, shaking every metal plate on their form. With one small arm, they reach out and opened two fingers, spreading out several dozen holographic displays. Each shows a different piece of info, all supplied by Adam to the ship. Human anatomy graphs, geographical maps, hundreds of news snippets and scientific journals all floated around the two. Adam sighs.  
“PERFECT,” the captain’s voice shakes Adam’s ribcage before automatically adjusting its volume, “then our plan.”  
Adam nods lightly. He still needs to appeal to the Shareholders before any of his plans were to go into order, yet the captain had already gotten permission to start human testing. He wrings his wrists before swiping through the myriad news reports, “We need to make sure we look good before you go and do anything that might make people distrust us, alright?”  
The captain nods, their eyes flitting through each document as Adam rushes through all of them. Their back straightens, towering over the human, before exiting the room. Adam is alone again. He exhales.

...............

I open the door to my apartment. The ground is littered with books, papers, graphs, everything that I could get my hands on. I didn’t think I would ever make it back here.   
There’s a single glass of water sitting dormant on my counter. To its side sits my Tv remote as well as a couple pills, both painkillers for my implant. I pop one into my mouth and flick the TV on, opening right into the news channel.  
“Reports have come that Adam, the CEO of Metericha Prosthetics, intends to address the press tomorrow afternoon. As of yesterday morning, his company is currently believed to be in contact with the massive extraterrestrial ship currently floating above their headquarters. Eyewitness reports state that a massive beam fired out from the top of their building mere minutes before the ship’s arrival, seemingly directly tied. As of now, there has been no mention of whether or not anyone else in the company’s board of directors knew about this project.”  
The lukewarm water does nothing to get rid of the massive lump in my throat.

Four monitors flicker to life with the click of a button. My computer hums as it starts up, opening everything I had open before I left. Nothing open meant anything anymore, I barely even comprehend what I was working on before I close each document. There isn’t any point in keeping anything from the past month, we were all wrong. 

“None of us were ready for this.”  
My eyes burn. I blink once, only to start itching violently at them. I haven’t slept for days at this point, not since before I went to work. With a single click my post uploads almost instantly, hitting the top of the news feed. People have been messaging me nonstop since I got back on, but I haven’t taken the time to be distracted by them.   
“We were completely wrong.”  
There’s already half a dozen views. I said that I was probably never coming back. I crack my fingers and wrists with two swift movements, wringing them as I wait for people to read everything I’ve put down. By tomorrow morning this article will already be outdated, but it doesn’t matter.   
“We have to start from scratch.”  
I lean back in my chair, listening to the back creak as it bends back with me. Tomorrow, the whole world will change. Again. Adam must be reveling in all this publicity.


End file.
